San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Perfect time for camping wine
Refreshing blends in aluminum bottles
Welcome to Wine of the Week, a series in which Chronicle wine critic Esther Mobley recommends a delicious bottle that you should be drinking right now. Last week she highlighted Storybook Mountain Vineyards’ dry and rosy Napa rosé. Check for a new installment online every Wednesday.
I recently went camping in two spectacularly beautiful places in Wyoming: Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. As I prepared for the trip — purchasing bear spray, making sure our propane canisters were full, downloading many hours’ worth of audio books — I was having trouble figuring out one crucial question. What to drink?
Since we were driving to Wyoming, any bottles of wine I brought would inevitably be subjected to excessive heat while stowed in the car, potentially ruining their contents. I wasn’t counting on having access to a good wine shop in the parks. I do love drinking beer after a big day of hiking, and sure enough, we bought some great local beers in Wyoming (we really liked the Jenny Lake Lager from Snake River Brewing), but I know myself well enough to know that at a certain point in the evening, once the temperatures are dropping and I’m huddling around the fire, I will really just want a glass of wine.
As it turns out, a new line of wines from Sonoma County was designed for precisely such an occasion. The brand, Revelshine, is the brainchild of Jake Bilbro, who owns Limerick Lane Cellars in Healdsburg. The key to Revelshine’s outdoorsy appeal: aluminum bottles.
An avid outdoorsman, Bilbro wanted to create wines that could fit into scenarios where people typically reach for a can of beer — on a camping trip, at the beach, after a big ski run. Glass bottles have a hard time blending into these sorts of surroundings, whether because glass is outright prohibited (as is the case at Ocean Beach in San Francisco), or it’s cumbersome to carry, or it would require bringing along a corkscrew. The fact that aluminum is one of the most recyclable materials available, and weighs much less than glass, makes it appealing from a sustainability standpoint, too.
Many other wineindustry players have gone after the beachandpark audience in recent years by putting their wines in cans. Bilbro was adamantly opposed to that. “Canned wine has gotten this reputation of being cheap, and that’s not what we’re doing,” he says.
Each 500ml Revelshine bottle costs $15 — so if it were adjusted to the size of a regular bottle, you’d be looking at a $22.50 wine. The vessels are doublelined aluminum, intended to be sturdy enough to withstand any drops or impacts you might subject them to while snowboarding or rock climbing. For me, on my camping trip, the aluminum vessels’ greatest advantage was that they stayed colder for much longer than a glass bottle would. I also appreciated the fact that their screw caps were easily resealable, making them easy to transport if I didn’t finish the bottle in one sitting. (Once emptied, they can also serve as makeshift water bottles.)
Revelshine produces three wines: white, rosé and red. Each is a blend of many different grape varieties; you’re not meant to get hung up on the particulars here. Jake Bilbro’s brother Sam Bilbro, owner of Healdsburg’s Idlewild Wines, is in charge of the winemaking. For now, the wines all carry a catchall California appellation, meaning they’re sourced from vineyards throughout the state.
All three of the wines are well made — dry, balanced, fresh — and light enough to serve as a thirst quencher, even the red (which does well with a chill). I found myself reaching again and again for the Revelshine white wine, however. Its two main components, Sauvignon Blanc and French Colombard, provide a zippy, highacid baseline, with smaller portions of Chardonnay, Grenache Blanc and Arneis (a white grape from Piedmont, Italy) adding subtle creaminess. When I pour it into my stemless plastic wine glass, I smell white flowers and orange peel, and I taste a racy, citrusy energy.
After we’d left Wyoming, we spent a few nights in Oregon, where we kayaked along the Deschutes River. We were catching the beginning of the big heatwave up there. It would have been the perfect occasion for Revelshine — I could have stowed one in the back of my kayak. Unfortunately, by then, we’d drunk our entire supply.
The wine is available from the Revelshine website.
Revelshine White California 2020 ($15/500ml, 12.5%)